


Just out of Reach

by Jadedphase



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Jasper and Monty in prison, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 18:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1657961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadedphase/pseuds/Jadedphase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They can survive the long days and the confinement; it’s the possibility of being the one left behind that’s too much to bear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just out of Reach

It shrieked like bones grating together, like the scrape of steel dragging, and it echoed far louder than it rightful should have in those quiet hallways. Maybe it was more in their heads, the intensity of the sound, because it carried an underlying fear with it that neither of them was willing to show for the sake of the other.

It was both soulless and cold as ice; that background music as they watched as their world ended.

The real sting came from knowing it was not meant to happen like that, of all the ways it could have come crashing down it was never supposed to be with the slow grinding slide of a door roiling into place that put a wall between them for days, weeks, months; a solid dividing force until the end.

They would never spend so much time alone as they would be after that moment, which made them no different than any of the others stuck counting hours and staring at bare floors; but maybe it ached just a little bit more for them.

Neither could deny that the occasional glimpse between hallways and the short few moments at meals was not the same when most of their time before had encompassed a sense of sharing shadows and the reassuring presence of each other.

There was, of course, nothing that could stand in the way when they were together; neither Jasper’s hopeful awkwardness nor Monty’s quiet reservation over things. Teasing and long days, differences in social standing and even rules that didn’t make much sense to either of them were never stronger than the combined force they had in each others company.

And that was how it was meant to be, that was friendship that thrived at the very core of people; and it didn’t matter at all if most everyone else didn’t understand it because they had never found that connection with someone else for themselves.

Was it any wonder that they spent their hours locked away staring at the ceiling or pacing restlessly, trying to invent new ways with each passing day to communicate around those cell walls? It had, no doubt, driven the guards to fits of annoyance time and time again when they found a new outlet; giving up was simply not an option when there was that constant little nagging thought in the back of their minds that it could be the change of everything.

They both knew it would come to an end, that neither of them were going to be trapped in that prison forever, but there wasn’t as much reassurance in that as they wished for.

Jasper would joke in a bored drawl that once he got out people were going to respect him more after his months of being locked up, that he and Monty were going to laugh even harder now that they knew how not to get caught again. And Monty agreed, not knowing what else to do, while he sat in his cell and tried to devise impossible plans that would make their freedom a guarantee.

Because neither of them wanted to face the idea that there was another possibility.

In months, short weeks piled together not nearly as much as seemed fair, decisions would be made that they would have no real choice in even if the powers that be liked to paint the idea up pretty otherwise; and the hardest part would be not being allowed to face it together.

Monty first, while Jasper would wait in the silence of his cell and hope with baited breath that the rules they’d broken were not enough to warrant the death of his best friend. There would be weeks of not knowing for him, sleepless hours of uncertainty until he would face judgement himself. 

It was the sort of anxiety that Jasper would not be accustomed to, not with his determined outlook to think that the world was a flawed but ultimately okay sort of place, and it would drag out the worst in him before the end.

And even if somehow he escaped the heavy hand of what amounted to execution given a less gruesome name, he wouldn’t know until he was free if Monty would be waiting there anymore than Monty would know until the time was up if he was ever going to see his best friend again.

The chances were slim, they both refused to admit it. But the possibility was all too real that one of them wouldn’t be going back and the other would be returning to find the empty space the other had once occupied.

Monty had thought about that time and time again while sitting in his cell, kicking his heel against the wall that separated his tiny square of existence from the one where Jasper resided, and had come to a dismal conclusion.

If they both couldn’t have their freedom then he almost hoped that neither of them would get it; surviving without each other would be possible in the barest sense but just what would be left behind from the loss might have been a prison sentence of a more lasting, painful sort.

His life would lose most of the spark without the background rambling of Jasper, and for Jasper the reckless streak would only turn sharper and more dangerous without the steady direction of Monty to calm him.

It would be nothing short of a disaster for either of them.

So much to weigh over, and Monty could hear Jasper stirring on the other side of that wall, no doubt bored senseless with only that limited space to occupy his energy. Maybe that was the hardest part for Monty, he was bored but could keep his mind busy while Jasper had pent up energy bubbling over like madness and it was hard to listen at times when he could hear the motions and know that any effort to distract Jasper with conversation would only earn them both a reprimand from the guard.

Which made the hissed whisper carried between the walls all the more startling when it reached him.

"Monty, you awake?" Jasper’s voice was bordering on anxious and excited at the same time, causing a trickle of curiosity to spring up in Monty.

"Yeah," it seemed like a valid time to return to the front of the cell, but there was nothing much to be seen from there and Monty wasn’t certain it was anything more than Jasper being resistless, "what?"

"Something’s going on."

And it was that comment, more than anything else, that Monty would use later on to mark the point when the world started to turn for them once again.

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat inspired by the prompt; "They watched their world end."


End file.
